AIR

I have mixed feelings about AIR. I started reading the VN (the old Standard Edition) knowing I wasn’t the target audience. I typically don’t like this level of moe and I don’t like nakiges or anything designed to “make you cry,” but I wanted to try something different and it had to be a romance visual novel.

I found enjoyment in certain parts, like the Minagi route and the Summer route. Honestly, the Summer route kept me hooked. But the Misuzu, Summer, and Air routes, put together as one story, are… fine, at best? I simply didn’t care about Misuzu, and I think that’s quite important to enjoy most of what happens in this story. I don’t find her relationship with Yukito romantic at all, as she’s too “dumb” and described as a “childish-child” and doesn’t do much other than suffer from the curse and say weird shit, and he’s an older guy with a somewhat clear goal.

The romance in AIR is “kinda there” because it’s a bishoujo game by Key, I suppose, but its relevance varies depending on whether you consider each Dream route (the first part) individually or the Misuzu-Summer-Air arc as a single story. The romance component in the Dream routes could have been removed for all I care, as it feels shoehorned in. But after reading the Air route, it becomes harder not to interpret romantic love as one of the story’s core themes. Finishing the Summer and Air parts didn’t make me think “ah, that romance makes sense now!”, I just thought “well, this long and interesting story doesn’t fix the very weak romance route it was built upon.”

Ah, well, I might sound like a hater, but I’m not hating on anything, I just didn’t like those aspects I mentioned, and I really wanted to enjoy a romance story, so this was a letdown for me. If I had to say something positive about AIR, then I would mention, again, Summer, but also the Misuzu-Summer-Air arc that I’ve critized, or even the worldbuilding of the entire game. The mythology-like tale was super engaging, and I liked how it connected to the modern era that the other protagonists live in. The relationship and story between Ryuuya, Kanna, and Uraha were nice, even if I didn’t like some of the tropes.

I also really liked the summer vibes. The backgrounds, the sounds, the music, some of the dialogue. It really made me feel immersed in a beautiful world where summer isn’t the absolutely worst season of the year (althought the characters weren’t really having a good time).